The European Commission is launching a competition inquiry in the e-commerce sector.

Although more and more goods and services are traded over the internet in Europe, cross-border online sales within the EU are only growing slowly. This is partly due to language barriers, consumer preferences and differences in legislation across member states.

However, there are also indications that some companies may be taking measures to restrict cross-border e-commerce, the European Commission believes. The Commissioner in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, will table her proposal to the Commission in the coming weeks.

“It is high time we remove remaining barriers to e-commerce, which is a vital part of a true Digital Single Market in Europe. The envisaged sector inquiry will help the Commission to understand and tackle barriers to e-commerce to the benefit of European citizens and business,” she said.

European citizens are enthusiastic users of online services. In 2014, around half of all EU consumers shopped online. Yet, only around 15 per cent of them bought online from a seller based in another EU member state. This indicates that significant cross-border barriers to e-commerce still exist within the EU.

For example, technical barriers, such as geo-blocking, may prevent consumers from accessing certain websites on the basis of their residence or credit-card details. The sector inquiry will focus on private – and in particular contractual – barriers to cross-border e-commerce in digital content and goods.

Knowledge gained through the sector inquiry will not only contribute to enforcing competition law in the e-commerce sector but also to various legislative initiatives which the Commission plans to launch to boost the Digital Single Market.

If, after analysing the results, the Commission identified specific competition concerns, it could open case investigations to ensure compliance with EU rules on restrictive business practices and abuse of dominant market positions.